Ursa Minor

“The group [Ursa Minor]’s album Silent Moving Picture is one we keep coming back to, finding something new each time.” -Time Out New York

Envisioned, fronted and founded by New York chanteuse Michelle Casillas, Ursa Minor has become a mainstay in NYC’s indie rock scene. The band delivers a timeless mix of vocal driven pop/rock with a primal rhythmic undercurrent; sharp and urban yet broad and free.

“Ursa Minor blurs the line between folk, jazz, and experimental music...with haunting, spare, even cinematic songs .” -All Music Guide

Splendid Magazine calls their songs “warm works of natural beauty…appealingly tousled” and New York’s Village Voice cites Ursa Minor’s sound as “ethereal yet concise… wrought with enunciated keens and alto murmurs, moody drum snaps and strong melodies.”

Ursa Minor’s debut LP “Silent Moving Picture” was released by Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, on Smells like Records; a label known both for championing new artists (like Cat Power and Blonde Redhead), and for releasing comprehensive series of works by Lee Hazelwood, and Sonic Youth.

Since Ursa Minor’s acclaimed debut, Michelle has swapped her Fender Rhodes for electric guitar and her songs have a new snap in them. Her singing is startling and sexy; effortlessly rhythmic, with soulful vulnerability and a bold attitude.

“Casillas [wields] a sensuously fragile inflexion and phrasing… lilting from yearning highs to crooning lows almost instantaneously.”-Movment Magazine

“She hits her notes effortlessly, sometimes giving them a full oboe-like resonance and at other times skittering over them like a hipster flute.” –Splendid Magazine

Bass whiz Rob Jost (Imogen Heap, Wayne Horvitz, Saturday Night Live Band, Bjork) and NY heavyweight drummer Robert DiPietro (Jesse Harris, Norah Jones, Josh Rouse) equally create the sound, contribute songs of great depth and strength, and sing harmony, while the infamous Tony Scherr (Bill Frisell, Sexmob, Feist, Lounge Lizards) brings a sonic lightning with his electric guitars. Showface, the long awaited new album by Ursa Minor, will be released this Spring 2011.

“Bold and original” -All Music Guide

“The stormy vocals set alongside the haunting instrumental backdrop make for wonderful…any time of day music” -Movement Magazine

“Ursa Minor put a purplish Fender Rhodes bruise on storm cloud through picture window singer-songwriting ritual” -Village Voice

“It's the kind of voice you would follow anywhere” –Splendid Magazine